Aldi, Walmart, Costco, and More Grocer Comparison + Never Shop At Kroger Again
Seeing a deal vs Calculating a deal
Aldi will bring you in for loss leaders on Eggs, but their green peppers are 2x more expensive than Walmart. Which is more cost effective?
Typically we have used Calories Per Dollar, but there is nothing wrong with using other metrics. Rather than see which way a broccoli company rounded on protein nutrition, we will compare mass/$.
Process Notes:
Bulk sizes and store-brand were chosen when available.
We look at
Cost – Mass Per Dollar
Quality- Availability
Quality- Worker Pay
We did not look at: Self Checkout, Greeter Presence, and ‘Singing Employees’. My advice here- Don’t be weak. Basic human interaction is good for you. Consider it exercise.
Grocery Store Comparison
To Continue:
A common theme will be seen today, despite claiming to lower prices, Kroger was our worst performing store.
Aldi and Meijer did not have fresh broccoli available. We track this in a later section.
The size of the packaging didn’t matter to Aldi, who despite being 5lbs lighter was the cheapest place to get brown sugar.
Kroger looks to have a loss leader on butter. Costco does not seem to be the place to buy your weekly groceries.
When I go to Aldi, I usually limit myself to Eggs and Milk. Greek Yogurt hits 40g of protein per dollar at Aldi. This is exceptionally high and a recommendation.(Note, I haven’t tasted it)
Costco and Sams Club were recorded with their almost nauseating 3lbs of canned tuna. This does not reseal, and possibly intended for restaurants. This is more expensive than Walmart and Aldi consumer sizes. Aside from the membership fees, wholesale seems more like a Marketing tactic rather than bulk bargins.
Introducing Effectiveness
Efficiency is measured as Metric/Cost. Effectiveness is measured Metric/Maximum.
Aldi, Costco, Walmart, and Samsclub are all above 95% Effective. You aren’t losing that much going from store to store. However Meijer under 50% would be an awful place to frequently purchase flour.
Can you go into Aldi and Walmart with a smile and create a positive aura?
Sams Club is often close to the price of their own store, Walmart.
On many items we found it was significantly more expensive to get the Sams Club product.
While my original statement was a bit drastic(considering it was inspired by the fall of Carthage), I don’t see a reason to maintain a membership at Sams Club.
Thought this was interesting. Want that peanuty flavor? Peanut butter is 2x more effective than peanuts.
I’ve noticed this reoccurring, massive bulk packaging saves around 30% of the cost. That is the highest possible amount you can save from Costco and Sams Club. The top item was a 50lb bag of pinto beans. Despite my urge to believe I need commercial sized quantities of food, the savings on this 50lb bag is only 10 dollars, and in 2 years the food will have expired.
Oh Kroger…
Home Stretch
This looks quite odd, however, my Walmart and Aldi lack a variety of produce, their only Spinach was precut in packaged bags. The lesson here- Packaging is expensive, if you can avoid it, you will save money.
Walmart kicks butt on sugar. Wholesale doesnt benefit you for going big.
Aldi had a crazy loss leader, a bag of sweet potatoes for a dollar. I didn’t believe it, so it was the item I purchased to confirm, they gave you a multi-pound bag of sweet potato for 1 dollar.
Fish prices vary drastically by store.
Tortillas seem to be similar from store to store.
This week everyone had a sale on Turkey. It seems Walmart and Aldi are not having difficulty bringing people in. The protein per dollar is deceptively high due to using the weight of bird=weight of edible meat in this math.
More interested in the Calories per Dollar, Pasta seems to have gone down in price in the last few years. My goal for ’empty white carbs’ is around 2000 calories per dollar. I’ve gotten crazy deals on cereal close to that amount, and I usually stock up. At 2000 calories per dollar, anything is a pretty good buy. Walmart 1$ knockoff girl scout cookies often meet this criteria.
Comparing Workers Wages
Really Kroger? Really?
Your decision if this matters to you. It doesnt seem like any grocery store pays well.
Variety and Cleanliness
From our list we found Costco, Aldi, and Sams Club did not have many of the items we were looking for.
How to Shop
Sams Club
Don’t shop at Sam’s Club.
Costco
Don’t shop at Costco.
Aldi
Aldi is great for a few products, however, keep an eye out for massively expensive products. IE: If chicken breasts are 1$/lb more than other stores.
Walmart
They have a massive variety of groceries at low costs. I recommend them for low cost fresh food and produce.
Meijer
Meat costs were low. With protein being expensive, Meijer surprised me and will have a new customer. Warning to keep an eye out for expensive products.
Kroger
Never again, and you should tell your friends.
Why Kroger?
How does a company pay their employees so poorly and have such uncompetitive food prices? Their target demographic will pay more. Flashy signs claiming low prices, clean store, a name that isnt ‘Walmart’. Upper Middle class people routinely go to Kroger without knowing how bad costs are.
Try eliminating Kroger, it will take a few weeks to learn a new grocery store, but your weekly savings will be noticeable.
Expand your Efficiency
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Should You Spend Time To Shop For Gas? Or, Learn The Rule Of Thumb
Efficiency- Michael: Is It Cheaper To Shop For Gas?
You have your ‘gas price’ app on your phone, and you spot a deal a few miles away.
Depending on how much you are Worth, Cost of Gas, and your Tank Size, will decide if that is a deal.
Warning- This article has a bunch of Fun Math. Easy multiplication and addition. If you want to skip the math and learn The Rule Of Thumb, skip to the end.
Money Savings
Download the excel sheet and change the givens to see your data extra personalized.
Table of ‘givens’
Gallons To Fill * Gas Station Price Difference = Total Profit
Total Profit is the actual dollars you would be holding.
Time Value
Using Miles Traveled and Average Miles Per Hour, we can calculate the extra time it takes to get gas.
If you value your time at 10$/hr you get $ Lost In Time.
Life Profit
Life Profit = Total Profit$ – $ Lost In Time.
Life Profit is a conversion of your Time Value ($/hr) into dollars. I’m not certain this the most significant value in this study. I personally find the Total Profit and Lifetime Vacation Days Lost
Vacation Days is the lifetime cost if you did this weekly, in units of 8 hours(A vacation day). Skip this to save 26 vacation days worth of time in your lifetime.
Takeaways, savings are pretty minimal, a 100$ dollars a year if you are lucky. At a very lucky extreme you are saving $10,000 in your lifetime. I personally think its too much effort.
Anything beyond 1 mile away is almost always a waste of a minimum wage worker’s time.
Real Life Useful Probability
Should wait until the next gas station on your way home to get gas?
You don’t know future prices, and after you pass a gas station, you cannot turn around. Previous are Eliminated.
This is a common mathematical problem, and Numberphile did a great video on selecting ‘The Best Toilet At A Music Festival’ or “The Secretary Problem”.
How To Pick The Best Gas Station
- Observe 37% of the possible gas stations (IE 10 gas stations, observe 4)
- The lowest price is your price to beat
- When you find a better price than what you observed, buy it immediately
- If you cannot beat the lowest price observed, buy gas at the final location
Probability can be used in real life. Optimization with math, and easy to use.
Expand your Efficiency
Get more Efficiency to improve your daily life. Subscribe and get three slow cooker recipes designed to be low cost, quick and healthy.Shop
Get our physical cookbooks at the links below:
Speed Cooking: Make all 2000 calories in under 2 minutes per day.
Perfect Eating: The cookbook that meets the RDA of 25 Essential Nutrients for $1.59/day
Pleasure Duration Per Calorie, 7.5 Minute Per Day Bodybuilding, 60s French Toast, and more
This is the complete output of 2024’s studies and ideas. Enjoy.
News
Efficiency Is Everything is looking for a part time Website Director, responsible for legwork on articles, books, webpages. You will have a chance to research your own Life Industrial Engineering studies. Looking for an Efficiency Is Everything fan with MBA or equivalent. Email michaelkirk@efficiencyiseverything.com
Where have I been? Programming automations. It is more Economically Efficient than Industrial Engineering. I have more money now. Hopefully that can explain the Website Director posting above.
I continue to automatically think and study Life/Home efficiency. I have been trying to make 60 second meals and optimize Pleasure Per Pain. Here are the finished studies for 2024:
Quality of Life
Pleasure Duration Per Calorie: Comparing various foods and consumption methods to get the most Pleasure per Pain of food.
Time Saving
7.5 Minute Per Day Bodybuilding: Complete an intermediate bodybuilding program in minutes a day, get healthy, get good-looking, make more money.
Fastest Ways To Lose Weight: Compare Fasting to Exercise, no magic here, just calories burned per day. It makes me want to fast and exercise, but not waste time on walks while eating at maintenance. Goal is to be miserable for fewer days.
Automatic Fish Tank Cleaners: Plants. I can attest to this being a 5/5 quality of life improvement if you are a fish tank owner.
ChatGPT to Save Time: Personalize diet choices, plan parties and decorations, and get quick feedback on low stakes professional questions.
60 second ‘French Toast’: I was told I’m not allowed to call this French Toast, but once you dump syrup on it, does it matter?
Save Money
Thrift Store (Date Night) To Save Money on Clothes: Need clothes but don’t have the time? Have a partner that would enjoy the surprise of finding a cool piece of clothing? Want to save money? Friday Night Thrift Shopping.
Buy Nothing Facebook: For Free, my wife has cleaned and cluttered our home, gotten clothes, Halloween outfits, and more from Buy Nothing. This one is from Mrs. Efficiency, Dr. Mandy Kirk.
Onto 2025
My biggest ask is to tell your friends about Efficiency Is Everything, or share it. Hopefully that is easier than spending money. Plus you will look super cool and smart for Min/Maxing life.
Our collection of Human Life Industrial Engineering knowledge grows.
Best Regards,
Lead Engineer
Michael Kirk
Thrift Store (Date Night) To Save Money on Clothes
I consider this quadruple-Efficient. You go on your date. You multitask and get clothes for the upcoming season. You save money on clothes. You get pleasure from the gambling aspect of randomly finding something good.
My credentials on this topic: I got into fashion for a minute, I can make my own clothes. I can afford any brand. Thrift store clothes do the role. Not only do they have brands for status-seeking people, but you can find nice fits which is most important. LPT: Think of the entire outfit.
How To
Go to a thrift store with your date, pick and try on clothes. I will explicitly mention here: you should be social with your date. But it’s tempting to divide when you see something cool.
Pick clothes that you need. I currently have enough dress shirts, but it seems every year I need new short sleeved shirts. Whatever you need, you shop for.
Efficiency Creator Kandice: Accessories – you could find some hidden gems here. Belts, gently worn shoes, bags for the ladies, and designer items too. It is worth finding designer items at these shops, when you can. Some people make a living off of thrifting and upselling. But besides the potential side-hustle, a designer bag is likely to last you more uses per-dollar than buying a dupe off Amazon or Temu. At a thrift store you’ll pay a fraction of the price if you can find the real stuff.
Tips
You might want to do research and make sure you are going to a Thrift store that gets nice clothes. It’s worth trying a few.
It might be worth putting a cap on the amount you want to spend, we usually set it at like $30 unless something crazy happens.
Look for stains. Try everything on.
Wash everything.
Final Thoughts
The “good problem” with thrift stores is that they have stuff that you will really like. The problem is they have one. You literally cannot buy two of the same shirts.
I hope you also can enjoy the phenomena of enjoying a thrift store purchase a bit too much. For that reason, I still buy many clothes at the regular store. This is a good first stop, and the randomness makes it fun.
Save Money with Fast Recipes as an alternative to Fast Food / Restaurants
Given the ~$15 per person minimum cost to eat somewhere, I wanted to share the concept behind our 2 minute/day Speed Cooking book.
Concept: Faster than Fast Food
Fast food takes some transportation time, order time, waiting, and further transportation time. A re-order delivery is going to beat us, but we can beat a trip to a Fast Food Restaurant ~5 minutes.
We will only count active time as most Fast Recipes take 20+ minutes to cook. You are at home during this 20 minutes of passive time, I can’t think of a better location to use those 20 minutes. Grocery shopping is also not counted in the total time, if you need to bring this time down, I suggest a 4 week schedule of recipes, pick the week you like and it has all groceries needed for the week sorted by isle(See EIE 21$/week).
How To: Faster Than 1000 Calories/Minute.
Everything is throw and go. Meats, potatoes, vegetables, nothing is ever cut into smaller pieces. If you want a vegetable cut, you will need to pay the grocery store premium(We do this for baby carrots).
Nothing is measured. Spices are added fast. Do not pick recipes or spices where slightly too much or too little will ruin it. Fewer spices is faster, however, a motivated chef can put in a dozen spices in far less than a minute.
Typically store bought sauces are used to save time, but taste and cost varies greatly. We personally have 1 exception, and that is to make a ultra massive pot of red Italian sauce. The job is quite easy, open cans of tomato sauce, add herbs, salt, sugar, some baking soda(Life Pro Tip), maybe ground beef. Let it cook and stir every ~30 minutes until it gets to boil. After it boils, turn it off, let it cool, and freeze into ~40 containers.
The big deal: Passive cooking only. Slow cookers, ovens, rice cookers, air fryers, maybe a pot of water if the pot is tall enough that water wont boil over. Nothing can be flipped or touched. Remember that its Throw and Go.
Ideas and Examples
Here are two examples, one from Speed Cooking and another from an upcoming ‘This Time The Food Tastes Good’. Note how many servings these make. Leftovers are the goal to save you time.
Two Minute Broccoli/Chicken Sesame Rice
This is my wife’s favorite. Basically pick out some sauces from the Asian isle at the grocery store. If the sauce is the name of a dish you like, its a safe bet to try it. This is a summary from the book Speed Cooking.
Steps:
- In a rice cooker, add rice and water. Turn on the rice cooker.
- Put chicken or broccoli on a pan and place it in the oven. Turn the oven on to 325°F (163°C) for 45 minutes.
- On a plate, place the cooked rice, and your choice of either broccoli or chicken. Add your preferred sauce at the table.
You may have a gigantic chicken breast on your plate. Time to enjoy conversation with family or TV while you cut the chicken breast into manageable pieces. The goal is to save you time in the kitchen, and give you more time you actually enjoy.
5 Minute Biryani
This one was so good, my surprised Dad chased people around the house telling them to eat it.
Servings: 3300 Calories, ~6 servings
You have 2 minutes to put these ingredients in a slow cooker, if you can’t find a spice quickly, move on, it will taste fine. You also might want to double the spices if you prefer extra aroma. We do not.
In a slowcooker add:
- Chicken (or Potatoes) – 2-3 breasts, and any chicken scraps you’ve been saving.
- Water – ~1 cup, ensuring the slow cooker does not dry out. Excess water is beneficial as it mixes with the rice later.
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 2-3 tbsp sugar, depending on your desired sweetness
In a rice cooker:
- 4 cups basmati rice – It’s quite important to use this type of rice for the intended flavor. Other types of rice can be used, but the taste experience may vary.
- 6 cardamom pods
- 1 star anise
- 10 cloves
- 2 tsp salt
Final steps moments before serving in the slow cooker:
- (deliciously optional) 8 tbsp ghee/butter/veg oil/veg shortening/peanut oil
- Cooked basmati rice, you can optionally take the cardamon pods, star of anise, and cloves out. Or just avoid eating it later. To save time, you can basically skim the top layer of rice, depends on how much waste you are okay with.
Now stir everything really good, you have less than 1 minute left. Serve and Enjoy.
By the way I never seem to get the salt right, I always salt a second time at the table.
Math:
8 cups cooked rice * 200 calories/cup = 1600 calories
3 chicken breasts * 250 calories = 750 calories
8 tbsp oils * 120 = 960 calories
Enjoy The Freedom
Save money, save time. These low effort meals are my personal favorite. Get excited about a future speed cooking style book, we figured out how to make Chicken Pot Pie in under 5 minutes of active time. For now, our even faster, but not as tasty Speed Cooking book.
Create Time with a baby
Add Time
Need 5 minutes for some reason? Tummy time, they are going to cry because its hard, but its good exercise. While my Doctor of Physical Therapy wife would not exactly recommend leaving the room for some legal purpose… Your kid is probably going to be crying for 5 minutes during tummy time, you are going to hear silence if something is wrong. For a normal baby, you can start tummy time at 2 days old. My favorite process is: Baby is crying, put them in tummy time for 5 minutes while I get the bottle ready, feed them the bottle, put them to bed. (If someone wants to be famous, do a scientific study to see how 5 minutes of tummy time, 3x per day affects SIDS rates)
Baby proof an area. We fenced off our entire living room with a baby/pet fence for our first kid. This peace knowing there was nothing dangerous they could get into, gave us freedom to do work in the kitchen. We might have overpaid for our baby fence, but it was well worth it. At 3 kids, the entire home is already baby proofed, so we don’t use fences or gates too much.
Teach your baby to hold the bottle. If our baby was in daycare, they learned this quickly. Basically when the baby is strong and coordinated enough to play with the bottle, its time to start teaching them to hold the bottle. The type of bottle you use may impact this, some bottles are easier to hold than others. Put their hands on the bottle and let go. Do this for a few weeks during feedings and bottle feedings just became recreational rather than necessary. My wife and I can attest to how much fun it is to bottle feed before bed as our usually hyper baby passes out in our arms.
Don’t rock your baby to sleep (every time). That 10-20 minutes you spend rocking your baby to sleep is time that your baby could be learning to fall asleep by themselves. I recently received a text message from a friend that asked ‘at what age do kids sleep without rocking them?’ referring to their 2 year old. I start this when the baby is a few weeks old, especially if the baby is fed, changed, and burped.
Multitask
Do chores with the baby, especially when they are fussy. A baby carrier is best if you are planning on a long session, but even one handed chores are more productive than doing 0 chores. Moving around, I imagine your baby will no longer be fussy, plus you can hand them random objects to look at.
Exercise with the baby present. Stroller running is reasonable for a mile or so on pavement. You can hula hoop, jump rope, spin bike, and lift weights all a few feet from the playroom, depending on your setup. You can even stretch with your baby on top of you. I would lower your expectations for this workout, it should be considered a supplementary workout. Babies are unpredictable and might just start balling their eyes out causing you to stop halfway.
Have some breast feeding plans. My wife sent emails, checked facebook for freebies, did online shopping, listened to audiobooks, and of course endless social media scrolling. Point being, you can have quality multitasking time that are either enjoyable or productive or you can waste it. Have a plan.
Use Technology
Use baby monitors. Between our home security cameras and all of my laptops/tech devices, I can watch and communicate with the kids throughout the house from the toilet.
In disagreement with the non-scientific World Health Organization who used opinions to form their recommended 0 seconds of TV per day, I recommend letting your under 1 year olds watch phonics and count to 100 videos. By age 2, they will automatically associate letters with sounds and can begin learning to read, they will know numbers to 100 and be able to begin adding. I throw in a Periodic Table of Elements song and similar songs into the mix. Consider this is monumentally better use of screen time than showing your kids corporate mascots(Disney/Nintendo/etc…)
Use Manpower
The Kid’s Grandparents can be a good way to soak up a few hours. On a similar note, I have cousins that love babies and will give us an hour or so of freedom.
Siblings are going to be teammates for life, get them into it early. Most kids can attempt a ‘shake the rattle/be silly for the baby’ and confuse the baby into being calm for a moment. This only needs to work once before the bond is formed. The bond of course being the selfish relationship that ‘playing with baby = crying stops’. I think your goal as an efficient parent is to facilitate the kids enjoying each other so playing is automatic.
Qualities – The engineering tool, not the buzz word, (Theory)
Lead Engineer, Michael Kirk-
On this website, we will use things like Calories, Vitamin A (g), Amount of 4G data/$. These qualities can be measured.
Or I can use it in my personal life. Label Maker- Hooks up to PC(True/False), inkless(True/False), doesnt use proprietary label paper(True/False), Cost($), size of label(inches).
These allow things to be compared objectively and without bias from brands and their marketing. Or if you do drink cooperate koolaid, this can help ensure you get the best product they offer.
Understanding the word Quality with an example
Suppose you need to buy a computer, consider what you want in a computer.
Do you want a fast computer, one that doesn’t slow down under movies, most video games, CAD, Photoshop, a video editor, and mobile? Do you only need something that runs Excel and a Browser? You can use qualities to find you the highest quality option at the lowest cost. There is even a situation that someone might have to give Apple money.
Qualities can be as simple as True/False or more complex/specific with numerical values. This depends on how much effort you want to put into collecting data. More time spent collecting information will give you a better end result, but this may not be necessary if you are buying something in the $0-$20 range. This may be more important when buying something in the $100-$1000 range.
When choosing a fast computer(as described above), you can choose the quality metric- Dedicated Video Card? (True/False). Or, you can use a numerical value of a standard Video Card Benchmark. Choice is yours to how you want to spend your time.
You could include RAM(GB of Memory), Storage Space(SSD or HDD). Deciding if these qualities are necessary to your decision is up to you.
Apple may meet your quality metrics, but they have the highest cost. This causes them to fall into last place quality per dollar (Not to mention their support for Chinese dictatorships), you wouldn’t buy an Apple product unless you had to. Suppose you need to compile an App for iPhone owners. In that case, there would be a quality called, Can compile for iOS (True/False). In that event, you are forced to buy an Apple product, you can still apply the previous advice. You don’t need video editing or fast speed, you need something that lets you compile.
These qualities can be compared to help you choose a $600 gaming laptop, a $200 used computer, or a $1000 barebones used Mac Mini.
Doing Math with Quality
Choosing a quality.
Start by brainstorming what qualities matter. In engineering this could be the max voltage for a transistor, at home it could be the number of inches a TV is. Don’t worry exactly how you will measure it, or the units. Focus on the problem you are looking to solve, and consider what qualities you need to achieve.
Choosing a dimension for a quality
Time to consider dimensions. It helps if there is an ‘objective measurement’, inches for a TV is generally something you are going to care about. You can extend this quality into multiple measurements. Diagonal in, width in, height in. Your decision how detailed you make your study. This can also be a simple Boolean True/False, ‘Does this allow me to connect via USB?’. (Also I have stopped making the Boolean/Bouillon joke, I get too many emails.)
You can even use subjective values, like a 0-10 ranking. Consider ‘coolness’, you could do a subjective 0/10 to 10/10. Its not perfect, but any measurement gets you closer than emotion.
Gather Data
After looking at lots of t-tables, it seems like there is a fantastic benefit in certainty to take even 2 samples. I personally recommend taking 3 samples because you get a 3x benefit in certainty by taking 3 samples over 2 samples. All that being said, if you want to actually be correct, you can take a larger sample. The most time conscious person should check 2 options, but I highly recommend 3 for lazy people. Weirdly enough confidence increases, but the diminishing returns are early. Fun fact, your airbags are officially tested 3 times.
Sometimes you need to get creative, if all you have available is the average caffeine content of coffee per liter, you might need to use it and make a note of how you came up with it. If the deciding factor comes down to this estimation, it may be worth spending more of your resources to figure out a better estimate.
Doing Math with it
Now that you have numbers, you can begin to compare. Its common to sort by max/min, but you can also do other useful things. Inches of TV divided by Cost of TV is the unit In/$, which later can be sorted for max/min. Other units I’ve used, mg Vitamin A/Calorie, mg Vitamin A/Gram of Broccoli. Protein per Second.
Making a decision
After you sort the data, you should learn a lot about the options. You can eliminate poor performers and begin focusing on the difference between the best options.
Where you can apply Quality for Correct Decisions
Ideas- Phones, Food, Contractors, Colleges, Degrees, Cars, Video Game systems, Laundry Detergents, and more. This website is full of comparisons, the best ROI I’ve seen on comparing quality per dollar was health insurance.
Next time you spend money, especially on big purchases, consider what quality metrics you care about. This will prevent corporate marketing from using psychology tricks on you. You save money, you get the best product.
Diaper Per Dollar, Over 200 Diapers Compared From Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Target and more
Target shoppers, never again believe the marketing ‘Target has the best diaper prices’.
Costco shoppers, never again believe their marketing ‘Costco has the lowest cost Bulk prices’.
This study will help you understand the lowest cost brands, sizes, stores, and qualities of a diaper. In addition, we’ll share our hybrid system for using cloth and disposable diapers.
Comparing- Store, Brand, Cost, and Quality
Even if you refuse to shop at Walmart who dominates the top of this list, you can still have some takeaways regarding brands, and size from this table below-
Best
You can see the most expensive brands, sizes, and qualities(nighttime and special allergic diapers) performed worse-
Worse
Generally stay away from Huggies and Pampers.
Parents Choice Quality
Parents Choice won best diaper per dollar, so we evaluated it for quality. One of the sides came undone on about 3 diapers in a row, but this could be our kid messing with the diaper. We had no issues in 3 months since.
We also tried their nighttime diapers and ~30% of the nights our 20 month old kid peed through the diaper. It’s hard to know if this is a quality issue, or my kid drank too much before bed.
Given those issues, these are not enough to deter us. We continue to use Parents Choice.
Other General Tips
If your kid fits in a size 4, do not waste money on a size 5. (Exception not shown in the data, seems that Newborn diapers cost more than size 1)
There may be differences between Pampers types(swaddlers vs cruisers), but when other brands are half the cost, you can easily change a diaper 2x as often and forget about that quality difference.
Lowest Cost Environmentally Friendly- Cloth Diapers
You may have considered saving big bucks and trying cloth diapers but were afraid of scraping poo on a daily basis. The solution is a hybrid system. The cost savings is incredible as we cut down disposable diaper usage by at least 1/2 if not 3/4. Most of our cloth diapers we got free or low cost from friends.
Here are our rules
>Nighttime Diapers for bed
>If there is small poo, put on a cloth diaper for the next 2-4 hours.
>If there is big poo, put on cloth diapers for the next 6-12 hours.
>If there is a hard poo and kid didn’t poo yesterday, put on a disposable diaper. More is on the way.
This generally works, with an occasional(1-4 times per month) missed poo that requires being rinsed off. As an added benefit, you learn how diapers work, and that disposable diapers can hold significantly more urine than you expect.
The Rest of the Data
The Diapers Per Dollar can be found here, have fun playing with the filters. Not every size of every brand was in stock at the time of recording. The excel file also contains notes. Some quick outputs below
Size 3
Size 4
Size 5
Size 6
Want an absorbency study or your favorite brand included? Contribute and send an email to michaelkirk@efficiencyiseverything.com proposing a study.
Eat For $1.50 Per Day – Urgent Release Prompted By Record Unemployment
EDIT June 15 2020: New $1.50/day Youtube Recipes
MAJOR EDIT: 9-6-2020: New nutrition info. Per Essential Amino Acid Research, Females eat 3-5 eggs/day, males up to 7 eggs per day. For Essential Fatty Acids EPA and DHA Take Fish Oil. If you are a believer in phytochemicals/Flavonoids, feel free to eat those in addition to the base $1.50/day recipes.
Efficiency Is Everything Responds to Crisis
Based on preliminary data from Food Per Dollar 2020, I have been asked to urgently provide recipes on how to eat for $1.50/day. The recipes below are tools to help you eat toward $1.50 per day.
As a note, our Eating for 3$/day Cookbook can be found here. These are more similar to common cooking and often require less prep, and have more meats.
Foods
The recipes in this article will be based on Potatoes, Milk, Flour, Eggs, and Kale. (Honorable mention to Beans and Carrots)
Using our Nutrient Per Dollar study, US Government nutritional recommendations, and linear algebra we solved for the lowest cost foods that hit all nutritional requirements. (As a note this is preliminary as it uses 22 macro or mincronutrients to determine its results)
Preliminary Female age 19-30
Preliminary Male age 19-30
If you are allergic, keto, picky, or vegan, I can calculate a specialized list for you. Please contact me at michaelkirk@efficiencyiseverything.com
EDIT: I added suggested foods for Keto and Vegans here.
Note- Some recipes have additional foods (IE- oils, sugars, spices) that can be added for flavor. It may be best to consider spending 1-2$/week on ‘flavor’.
$1.50 Per Day Recipes
There are lots of recipes, but I wanted to give you an idea what the week looks like.
Our current rotation of dinners (and lunch leftovers) is the following
Dinners/Lunches-
Monday- Easy Potato and Vegetable dishes: Hashbrowns, mashed potatoes, baked/microwaved potato, Carrots/Kale roasted or fried. (Add salt and oil to make anything delicious)
Tuesday- Homemade Noodle dishes: The cheapest are Bechamel sauce(no butter), oil + fresh pepper(buy fancy peppercorns for $3 and use all year!), carbonara no cheese, and (carrot) vegetable soup. Slight extra- Tomato sauce.
Wednesday- Efficiency-Mexican: Homemade Tortillas/nachos stuffed with pinto/refried beans, fried potato cubes, kale, hot sauce.
Thursday- 2$ Pizza: Homemade Dough, pizza sauce or BBQ sauce, mozzarella(but apparently you can make Mozzarella in 30 minutes, currently experimenting)
Friday-2$ Fried Rice: We deviate and have a rice dish for a Friday dinner. As a bonus it only takes 10 minutes to make. (Recipe in the free Efficiency cookbook minus chicken)
Saturday-Vegetable pot pie. Its so good, recipe below.
Sunday-Fancyish: Pierogies, Gnocchi, Homemade Noodle Pad Thai
Breakfast-
Pretty much eggs, toast, and hashbrowns.
Potato Soup
This recipe is for 2 people, but we double it for leftovers.
Ingredients-
Roux-
- 3 Tablespoons oil (or for non frugal people- butter)
- 3 Tablespoons flour
Soup-
- 2 Cups Milk
- 2 Cups Chicken Stock (aka- 2 cups water, 2 chicken bouillon cubes)
- 3-4 Potatoes, cubed (skins on for laziness and nutrition)
- 1 Teaspoon salt (I add more, but Mandy says I over salt)
- Half Teaspoon black pepper
For the roux, add the Roux ingredients to a pan and cook over low-medium heat for ~5 minutes, stirring often. Don’t let it burn, it’s easy to do. Add the rest of the soup ingredients to the pan, heat until boiling and cook for ~20 minutes stirring occasionally.
Crepes
These are so good, you will forget these are part of the $1.50/day budget. They taste luxury.
Makes 4 Crepes. Recommended flavors- Peanut Butter and Jelly(my favorite), Chocolate(melt kisses in the microwave), Nutella(so expensive, chocolate is cheaper).
Ingredients-
- 3 Eggs
- 1 Cup Flour
- 1 Cup Milk
- 1 Tbsp sugar (optional, or add more than 1 Tbsp)
- 1/2 tsp salt
Directions-
Mix well, stand mixers help(Worst case use a fork). Other people say to let it sit 30+ minutes, but its not necessary.
Turn a medium size pan on low heat, when its warm, add 1/4 of the mixture, approx the size of a ladle. Rotate the pan to coat the bottom of the pan. After ~2 minutes it should look cooked. Using a spatula, lift the sides of the crepe before flipping. Flip and let it cook for less than 1 minute, all done. Stuff and fold.
Avoid crisping(unless you like that) on higher temps. Your second crepe will look professional.
Homemade Noodles with Spaghetti sauce/Soup/Alfredo
Pick your flavor options, salt and oil is basically free-
- Soup? Make veggie broth, chicken boolean(yes) cubes, leftover bones to make stock, whatever you want.
- Spaghetti Sauce- See page 49 of the free (eating for 3$/day) Efficiency is Everything Cookbook.
- Alfredo sauce- See page 46 of the (still free) Efficiency is Everything Cookbook.
(protip- stand mixer and noodle maker makes it easy and delicious)
Ingredients, 2 servings-
In a pot-
- Mix 4 cups water (and 4 chicken bouillon cubes), get this to a boil
In a mixing bowl-
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons water(or milk)
- 2 cups flour
Directions-
Mix eggs, salt, water/milk, and flour until fully combined. It should be sticky enough to combine into one lump. If its runny, add additional flour. If its dry, add water, 1 tbsp at a time.
Lightly flour a cutting board, place the lump on the board. (optional- kneed about 12 times and wait 30 minutes. This is best for making angel hair noodles) Flattening the lump into a thin layer. Most people like thin noodles, so its recommended to use a rolling pin, adding flour as needed. At this point either use a noodle maker, or cut into thin strips. When all the noodles have been cut, put into boiling water for ~2 minutes. Keep an eye on the timer, after 2 minutes, remove from heat. Serve.
NOTE: This recipe has been improved, the old recipe was- 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 Tablespoons milk, 1.5 cups flour.
Mashed Potatoes
Pretty basic, but since Efficiency Is Everything, I’ll provide the laziest way. Serves 4-6 people.
Ingredients-
- 4-6 potatoes
- 1/2 cup of milk. Add more or less depending on your style
- 1+ tsp salt
- Pepper
Directions-
You could skin the potatoes, I don’t.
Boil the potatoes. You can use a slow cooker or hit boiling water for ~30 minutes. Poke a fork through to see if its soft. (You could cut them if you needed it faster)
Put this into a mixing bowl, add milk, add salt and begin mashing. We use an immersion blender, but any mashing will work.
Serve! If it doesnt taste good, add more salt and add pepper.
Pierogis
Use some of that mashed potatoes and stuff them into this dumpling.
Dough Ingredients-
- 2 Eggs
- 2 Cups flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup milk
Directions-
Start water and get to a boil.
Mix dough ingredients in a mixer. Flour a cutting board and rolling pin. Roll out the dough flat as possible. For ease, it may be best to break it up into a few balls before rolling out. Once flat, use a small bowl to cut circles. We used a Tupperware container.
Fill with mashed potatoes. Close Pierogi, use a fork to seal shut.
When ready, put Pierogis into boiling water for ~3 minutes. Get a different pan hot with oil (medium to high heat). Take boiled pierogis out of the boiling water and into the pan. Brown 1-2 minutes on each side.
Gnocchi
This one takes some labor, I recommend putting on a podcast/audiobook and making them in bulk. Freezing for later.
Ingredients-
- 4 potatoes
- 1 Egg
- 1.5 cups flour
- teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
Directions-
Boil and mash potatoes. Add flour, eggs, pepper, and salt and mix together. We used a stand mixer, the fancy professionals online do this by hand.
Flour a cutting board, and flour your palms of your hand. Put a small lump of the potato/flour mixture on the cutting board, and roll this until you get a ~1cm diameter(tootsie roll size) log. Take a knife a cut every inch. After cutting, roll these into gnocchi shapes. You could use a fork, but they are going to taste pretty similar either way. Now you are ready to either freeze on a baking sheet, or throw into boiling water for ~2 minutes. They will float to the surface of the water when ready.
Serve with spaghetti sauce for best results. See page 49 of the free (eating for 3$/day) Efficiency is Everything Cookbook.
If you freeze, after an hour, take off the pan and put into tupperware or a freezer bag.
Egg Drop Soup
This is basically eating eggs, but with flavor. Makes 4 cups of soup.
Ingredients-
- 4 cup chicken broth (4 chicken bouillon cubes, 4 cups water)
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
Directions-
Get water/chicken broth boiling. Add soy sauce and sesame oil.
Whisk eggs in a separate container. When the water is boiling, add the whisked eggs slowly. After a minute the eggs will be cooked and the soup is ready to eat!
Flat Bread
This has the benefit of not needing yeast. Although pretty much any bread you make will be Efficient.
Ingredients-
- 2 Cups flour
- 2 Cups Milk
- 1/2 Tsp salt
Directions-
Mix ingredients, we like using a stand mixer, but it isn’t necessary.
Start a pan on low-medium heat. Add enough of the dough mix to coat the pan. The more you add, the longer the cooking time. This usually makes 2-4 flat breads deepening on the size of the pan. After ~2 minutes, you can flip.
You can google other bread recipes, we got a bread maker from the thrift shop for 6$ and have been making loafs of bread since.
Cooked Kale
Kale is really hard to eat raw, but cooking it with salt and oil makes it as good as McDonald’s Fries.
Directions-
Tear kale off the stem, put in a pan on medium heat, add a little bit of water (~2 Tablespoons) and cover with a lid. Let cook for 3 minutes.
Once done, take off the lid, add some oil and salt. Cook for another 1 minute and serve.
Vegetable Pot Pie
Since eating for $1.50/day, we found you can substitute chicken out for potatoes surprisingly well. The texture is similar enough.
Ingredients-
Roux-
- 5 tbsp oil or better
- 5 tbsp flour
Filling-
- 3 or 4 large potatoes or 6 small. Cut into bite sized pieces.
- 2 cups of mixed veggies (ours was frozen, but fresh is cheaper)
- 4 cups chicken broth (4 cups water, 4 chicken bouillon cubes)
- 1 cup Milk
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (I added more after serving)
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper (I added more after serving)
EDIT August 2020- Improved Pie Crust
Oil Pie Crust-
- 2.5 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 4 tablespoons milk
- 2 egg
Directions-
Set oven to 425F.
Make a roux, and add the roux ingredients to a pan and cook over low-medium heat for ~5 minutes, stirring often. Don’t let it burn, it’s easy to do.
Add the rest of the filling ingredients to the pan, cook until potatoes are soft. If you are looking for some pro advice, Dr. Mandy Kirk says to add the potatoes 5 minutes ahead of the vegetables. Once the liquid starts to thicken, you are ready to fill the pie. More protips- Feel free to add more liquid, milk or water, if the filling is starting to look dry.
The Pie Crust
Mix ingredients, spread a little more than half the dough evenly across the bottom of the pie pan and up the sides and to the edge of the pan.
Take the remaining mixture, flour, a cutting board and rolling pin. Roll out flat.
Add filling. Place top of pie crust on top of the pie as best as you can and trim as necessary. Cut many holes on the top of pie crust.
It doesn’t need to be perfect, it will taste great either way. I added extra salt and fresh grounded pepper upon serving.
Cook in oven for 30-40 minutes @ 425F.
If it doesn’t taste fantastic, add salt. In general potato dishes will need lots of salt.
*Lower cost broth: every cup of ‘broth’ can be replaced by 1/2 teaspoon salt and a pinch of MSG.
Pesce d ovo
This is like Salmon Patties, but with eggs. Thank my Italian Mother. My wife was shocked at how tasty this was.
Suppose you make bread, but don’t like the crust. Let it get stale, and shred into breadcrumbs using a food processor.
Serves 2 or 3
Ingredients-
- 3/4 cup bread crumbs
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 tsp salt(or more)
- Some oil/fat
Directions-
Whisk eggs, then add breadcrumbs. Mix together and let sit for 1-2 minutes.
Get a pan to low-medium heat, add a small amount of oil. Pour 2 patties. Let cook for 2-4 minutes and flip. Goal is to get the patty golden brown. Once both sides are golden brown, you are ready to eat.
Breakfast Foods and Foods I don’t like
Here I’m going to list some foods that are either simple breakfast combos or foods I don’t like. I recommend googling and sticking to Eggs, Potatoes, Flour, Milk, and Kale if possible. Oil is pretty cheap, I don’t feel to bad about adding it.
- Eggs and toast(Make your own bread or tortillas)
- Pancakes
- Waffles
New Additions 4-21-20
Fresh Bread (with a bread maker)
Bread is great for sandwiches, Toast(breakfast toast with eggs, super efficient!), and making breadcrumbs.
Pick your bread recipe, its going to be efficient as long as you limit yourself to basically Milk, Eggs, and Flour.
Ingredients-
- 1 Packet Yeast (2.5 tsp)
- 1 Cup Water
- 3 Tablespoons Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 3 Cups Flour
- 1/4 Cup Oil
Directions-
We got a bread maker from the thrift shop for $6, its been great. Using that container, we add our yeast, 1 cup warm water, and 3 Tablespoons Sugar(the original recipe said 2 Tablespoons sugar, but I liked it better with 3). Wait 10 minutes.
Add 3 Cups Flour, 1 Teaspoon Salt, and 1/4 cup oil.
Turn on bread maker for fast 1.5lb setting.
After 2-3 hours, bread is ready. I find it difficult to cut at this point, but fluffy and tasty. Once it cools, I store in a bag to be sliced for toast later.
French Fries/Fried potatoes
At this point we are just cooking potatoes, but they taste great. You can either cube these or cut into french fry shapes.
Ingredients-
- Potatoes
- Salt
Directions-
(optional- peal potatoes, we don’t.) Cut potatoes into french fry shapes. Thin or thick, you decide.
Heat oil in a pan, medium heat. Add fries to the oil, cook for 2-4 minutes. If you like them soft, try after a few minutes, if you like them crispy, cook longer. They do cook a bit after you remove from the oil.
Remove from oil, salt. Serve.
New Additions Courtesy of Dr. Mandy Kirk‘s Cravings
Mandy has delicate and sophisticated tastes, she craves something and figures out how to make it.
Soft Pretzels
2 Variations here, Salt or Cinnamon Sugar.
Ingredients-
- 1 package of Yeast (2.5 teaspoons)
- 1.5 cups of water
- 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 3.75 cups four (Approx 4 total, since you use flour on your cutting board later)
- 1 Egg
- Topping- Either Salt, or Cinnamon + Sugar
Directions-
Turn on oven to 425 degrees.
Put yeast into warm water, let sit for a minute. Add salt and sugar.
Add the flour. The original recipe suggested adding 1 cup at a time, but they were hand mixing. We use a stand mixer and I’ve found you can add everything, turn on low, and forget it takes no skill.
After mixed, flour down a cutting board, place the dough mixture on the board, kneed the dough for a few minutes, and create small balls, the original recipe said 1/3 cup, but you decide on the size of your pretzels. Roll these balls into a rope shape. Twist into pretzel shape. (If you want it to be perfect, youtube how. It will taste good regardless)
Spray baking sheet pan with non-stick spray/oil.
In a separate bowl, beat an egg. Dunk both sides of pretzel and place on pan. Here is your chance to Salt or sugar + cinnamon.
Cook for 10 minutes, before checking on these. The next step is to broil, but this is the very dangerous step. Broil is a recipe for burnt disaster. You are allowed to leave the oven open and watch the food broil, the heat comes from the infrared rays, not the temperature of the oven. So keep a close eye. Sugar + cinnamon will broil(burn) faster, keep a close eye. Keep a close eye. Broil shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. Ours only took 2-3 minutes.
Tater Tots
These were a great addition to our dinner. As a note they were quite labor intensive, maybe next time we will stick to French Fries. Serve with Ketchup.
Ingredients-
- 4 Potatoes
- 2 Teaspoons Flour
- 3/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1.5 Teaspoon Salt
- Any cooking oil (veg oil)
Directions-
Peal potatoes. Cook potatoes to the point you stick a fork through it. Boil/Microwave, you decide. Let cool.
Shred the potatoes, and mix gently with flour, pepper, and salt. You are ready to shape these into tater tot shape.
Heat oil to ~medium heat. Add tater tots. We did ours in multiple batches. The goal is to brown the tater tots, just like you imagine them to look.
As a note, if you want to save on oil, you can roll the tater tots around in the pan after they cook on each side. This is slower, but you decide.
New Additions 6-15-2020
10 Minute Hash Browns
This recipe is great, but you NEED to work on high heat. This means high attention as you can go from Perfect to burnt in seconds.
This works because you do not use a towel to dry the potatoes, saving time and effort. But you need to pay attention.
Ingredients-
- 3 Potatoes
- Any cooking oil (veg oil)
- Salt
Directions-
Use a grater on the largest multi hole setting to create hash brown sized potato shapes.
In a large pan, put hash browns in oil on high heat. More oil= better browning and more calories.
After 1 minute begin to separate hash browns into ~4 distinct quadrants in preparation to flip. After 2 minutes the hash browns should be brown. Flip hash browns. Salt, potatoes needs lots of it. Wait another 1-2 minutes for the other side to brown. Serve (with over medium eggs).
Roasted Carrots
These are better than french fries.
Ingredients-
- 1-2lbs Carrots
- Any cooking oil (veg oil)
- Salt
Directions-
Preheat oven to 425F
Slice carrots to approx finger sized shape, doesn’t need to be perfect. Put carrots into a baking pan, and add generous amounts of (veg) oil and salt. Mix carrots and oil and salt and spread around pan, spacing as evenly as possible.
Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, flip carrots, I use a spatula and do my best.
Bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, check on it. Browning means they are perfect.
Kale Salad
Ingredients-
- Kale
- Any dressing
Directions-
Pick a dressing, highly recommend poppy-seed dressing and freshly washed kale. I can’t believe I can eat raw kale, but its happening.
Fluffy (Garlic) Breadsticks
These are fantastic. I warn that there is ~40 minute break as you wait for the bread to rise. These taste great. Original Recipe here– modified for Efficiency.
- 1 tbsp yeast(1 package)
- 4 1/4 cups flour
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp salt
- tbsp oil
Mix 1/4 warm water and yeast, let sit 5 minutes. Mix flour, oil, sugar, salt, and 1 1/3 cups warm water into the yeast, we used a mixing bowl for a few minutes.
Kneed dough by hand, ~12 times or until smooth.
Roll into 2 foot long roll, cut every 1.5 inches to make 16. Kneed each and shape into a ~7 inch long breadstick.
Spray baking pan with nonstick spray. Place breadksticks in pan. (We end up using 2 pans on the same rack.)
Wait 45 minutes for the bread to rise. Brush the top of the bread with oil and salt.
Bake 400 degrees, 15 minutes.
After baking, add another round of oil and garlic powder.
$2 pizza
This one is being worked on to be a $1.50/day meal. Ideas for improvements- Make your own Mozzarella in 30 minutes, grow your own tomatoes/make your own sauce.
Here is the $2/day recipe:
- 1 tbsp(1 packet) yeast
- 2.5 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- toppings(see below)
Dough:
Start oven at 450 Degree F.
Mix the yeast with the water and sugar, wait 10 minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients, mix. Flour surface, place dough ontop. Form dough into round ball, flatten into pizza shape.
Add toppings ideas
- Tomato sauce(your garden or from a can)
- Mozzarella cheese(DIY or store cheese)
- BBQ sauce)
- Vegetables/Pineapple
Personal favorites is to make half the pizza tomato sauce and half the pizza Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce + Mozzarella cheese. Its really good. In a homemade Pizza sauce- sugar and salt always taste good. Italian herbs like basil, rose-merry, garlic(powder), thyme. Finally, use a pinch of baking soda to cut down the acidity.
Finally, the garlic crust. Lightly add oil to the crust of the pizza. Top with salt and garlic powder.
Oven 15-20 minutes.
Let sit for 5 minutes, and if you would like- add another layer of oil on the crust. (Don’t compare me to Pizza chains if you didn’t)
Cut into ~8 slices.
$1.50 Efficiency-Mex – Tex-Mex + Efficiency
Warning, this recipe feeds 6. We enjoy this and want leftovers of variations(think taco-bell 5 ingredients) for leftovers. It takes a while to make the tortillas, so I prepare this in bulk.
Ingredients
-
Slowcooker Refried Beans
- 3 cups Pinto Beans
- 8 Cups Water
- 2 teaspoons salt
-
Cubed Potatoes
- 3 or 4 large potatoes, cubed
- low cost Oil
- Salt to taste
Tortillas
- 4 cups flour (And extra for flouring the cutting board)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1.5 cups of water
- 6 tbsp oil
Additional Toppings-
- Hot sauce
- Kale
- Pickled carrots(?)
Slowcooker Refried Beans-
Put water and pinto beans in a slowcooker, cook on low for 8 hours. Strain beans into bowl, leaving a 0.5 cups to 1 cups of leftover water for potential use thinning the beans down. Add oil and salt. Use an Immersion Blender($20) or hand mixer, or potentially mash by hand. If its not smooth enough mix longer. Rumor has it, some restaurants mix their beans for 40 minutes. 5 minutes seems plenty for home use.
Cubed Potatoes
Cube potatoes. Put oil in a pan on medium heat. (Bonus:- Potatoes cook faster if you cube them small and cook on higher temps. Careful high temperatures Burn quickly)
Flip after a 3-4+ minutes after 1 side has browned. cook on another side 3-4+ minutes. Test with a fork.
Tortillas
Mic (in a stand mixer) Flour, water, salt, and olive oil. Once combined, flour a surface and place dough. Kneed 10-15 times. Rest for 10 minutes.
Original recpie says to divide dough into 16, I like bigger tortillas, I would divide into 12.
Flatten into circle. Put in pan on medium/medium-low heat. Flip after they brown.
Wish you the best
Wish you the best during these unprecedented times. The study will be released at a later date, showing where we got these main ingredients from. This situation is too urgent to delay any longer.
If you found this useful, share with your friends.